Who are the pirates ???
p2pnet.net News Feature:- You may have noticed Zeropaid’s news section has been getting heftier, of late.
That’s because Bryan Mett, 26, from Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, is now lead Zeropaid news admin.
He’s also into writing.
Read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Arghhh you a Pirate?
Bryan Mett – Zeropaid
A pirate is one who robs or plunders at sea without a commission from a recognized sovereign nation. Pirates usually target other ships, but have also attacked targets on shore. These acts are known as piracy. Unlike the stereotypical pirate with cutlass and masthead sailing ship, today most pirates get about in speedboats wearing balaclavas instead of bandanas, using AK-47s rather than cutlasses. Source wikipedia
Lets take a look, today look in the mirror and ask yourself “Am I a Pirate?”
Did you wake up and adjust your eye patch?
Do you sail the high seas in search of plunder?
Funny enough I don’t look like one, however lets discuss this with and open mind.
Piracy is the enrichment of ones self through plunder or robbery of another’s personal property or Riches. Now its time to be brutally honest what your doing right now as you are reading this article is a self enriching action by plunder of another’s property, much like what I am doing while writing this article is the same so in this sense you and I are pirates.
However various reasons exist that I use to Justify my actions, one being I am about as broke as a damn glass on concrete. I get paid by-weekly, I pay bills then I obsesses about where the hell my money could have gone. Therefore to make worthy purchases I feel its not good enough just taking a handout, I need to see what I am buying. This is also a common attitude among most downloader’s.
Yes I know some people have no intention of buying anything and are trying very hard to achieve those goals. With those exceptions though allot of people end up buying what they truly like even if they download it, This is the basis of misunderstanding between the trade moguls and the consumer.
A funny blurb from the RIAA Nationwide anti piracy enforcement Bulletin http://www.narm.com/RIAA/December2004EnforcementBul.pdf Half way down under “Piracy Hurts Everyone” on the right hand side it says “Consumers lose because the shortcut savings enjoyed by pirates drive up the costs of legitimate product for everyone, Plus good luck returning a pirated tape or cd when quality is inferior or defective as often is.”
~I have to break away and quickly point out the quality of the music I download is EXCELLENT ~B.M
Correct me if I am wrong but aren’t they CUTTING cd prices? Its a laughable thing only because they apparently think that 17.99 for an average new release with 2 good songs is incredible savings passed on to you and me. Since the beginning of the RIAA campaign they have slashed average cd prices to 12-13 dollars, Quite a contradiction in my eyes.
This brings up the other side of the plate, do you think the Record executives are pirates?
They do plunder other peoples riches by charging inflated prices for mediocre product and beat people down with their cutlass in a court of law but there is one thing different, ” A pirate is one who robs or plunders at sea without a commission from a recognized sovereign nation.” the RIAA have the backing of the U.S Government so they are fully commissioned and enabled, so they are not pirates, just greedy.
So does that make you or I a pirate? Well I still don’t think so, lets explore another take on this. The logic employed by the recording industry is that by ripping music and then sharing it you are turning away a fan who might have bought the album otherwise.
As previously mentioned though, many people do buy what they like ultimately (a wine connoisseur would never settle for boxed wine as opposed to bottled). If looked at this way file-sharers are actually silent promoters giving exposure to an artist to people who might not have listened to it in the first place.
Perhaps with recent price decreases and a new sincere embrace of the internet as a potent distribution model they might start turning profits again and lure back the people they drove away when launching their ugly legal campaign against helpless seniors who don’t even own computers or underage kids downloading “its a small world” and “happy birthday”. The pirate label is to guilt us into thinking our actions are immoral and that we are nothing but criminals. So prove them wrong, make a copy of your favorite album and find a friend who would like it and give it to them and encourage them to do the same. What they pay good money for in the media for (exposure) we give them for free.
Am I a Pirate? Hell no, do I look like I sail and rob people. No, I am sure you don’t Either. In the end we will pay money and respect to the artists we feel deserve it and not what they put through the cookie cutter and EXPECT everyone to buy it.
So now can you tell me are YOU a pirate?
January 17th, 2005 at 6:37 am
I totally agre with this article I feel like I have been taken advantage of by the industry. I have sitting beside me well over $1000 worth of CDs that I have purchased. Most of which have been between $15 to $20, and containing a couple of good songs per CD. I am only 17 years old and haveing trouble getting a job that wouldn’t interfer with my school. So all the money that I have spent on those CDs I have worked hard for doing odd jobs for people and what not, while the RI** and people associated with them sit on there butts and sue 11 year olds and what not and make money. If I were to send an e-mail to the RI** I think it would contain 2 words, “Up Yours”.
January 17th, 2005 at 9:07 am
It seems there are a lot of P2P users – and writers – I have come across from Vancouver. Maybe it’s the bad weather that keeps people indoors and in front of a computer file sharing and writing.
January 17th, 2005 at 11:43 am
Who are the pirates ?
The real PIRATES are the record companies that use music on their records without ever getting a license or paying any royalties to the rightful owners and performers.
Real PIRATES are also radio stations that play songs and when asked say that the pay performance licenses to the performances rights organizations and when asked further if they have ever seen the list of songs so licensed (what songs that they paid for and are licensed to use), they say they have never seen the catalog or reportoire as the industry calls it. BTW, this, the phantom catalog, is one of the best kept secrets (or SCAM, or dhakedown if you will) in the music industry. No one talks about it publicly, not even the radio stations who allow themselves to be victims of the shakedown.
Real PIRATES are also the music publishers that steal songs from songwriter, outright ot through fraudulent songwriter contracts or copyright registration transactions. Even the largest publishers are dedicated to theses scams. This is widely known to industry insiders (as this writer is), but the public is unaware.
As to wether those that download songs are PIRATES, only if the person KNOWS that the multiple rights owners prohibit the downloading prohibit it and the downloader has received a proper notification from the proper party. Of course the problem is in the KNOWING part. There is no way of knowing if you have no physical copy of a record and even then there is no way of knowing if the copyright claims on the recording are valid. I personally have copies of recorings and books that that make invalid claims of copyright claims. Copyright claims are widely abused in the music industry.
Considering this. What a record company may have is a non exclusive license from the one of the music owners (these may be two, the music writer and the lyricist or 10, if the composer died and left 10 heirs), the performer and perhaps a producer of the recording, Then how is a downloader or CD burner to KNOW if all owners object to the making of copies or if the record company owns exclusive licenses from, say the 10 song owners? Or how is a downloader to know that one of the 10 song owners dos not object to the downloading or the burning of CDs at home for privaye, non commercial use? Without this knowledge, there may be no way of knowing if there was anything wrong in the downloading or copying.
Then there are the LAWS. There is this silly concept that ignorance of the law is no excuse, a concept that incredibly coexists with lawyers constrantly bickering in the courts as to how the law (and the long. hidden tail of jurisprudence) is interpreted and coexists with the citizen’s inability to physically access the law and the jurisprudence.
Then there are the countries. When you download a song from China, what laws apply, your laws or the chineses laws?
The whole thing is a legal riddle. I personally believe that no one can solve the riddle and the least qualified to do so is a court of laws that knows litle of the real world that citizens lives in, and have criminilized everything minor that the common citizen does, but nothing of what music industry executives do.
Who are the pirates ?
The PIRATES are the record companies that have used the music we own (inherited from my composer father) to make over 70 (known) records without ever getting a license or paying any royalties. RIAA member Sony alone has over 15 of these PIRATE recordings!
Also PIRATES are radio stations that play our songs and when asked say that the pay performance licenses to the performances rights organizations. We have never seen any of the money paid to the performance rights organizations that illegally license many our songs.
Also PIRATES are the music publishers that have stolen our songs.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
January 17th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Other way around ; )
Vancouver is in British Columbia, the best Canadian province. It’s a great place.
And I hate to tell you this, but p2pnet is published on Vancouver Island, the best of the best in BC, reached by ferry 90 minutes from the mainland, if you ever want some great food, music, fly fishing, hiking, mountaineering, kayaking, surfing, etc, etc.
heh
Cheers!
January 18th, 2005 at 8:30 pm
Argh…..
Oh wait a minute, I work… I buy things… and at the end of the day, after rent in my 3rd-world quality appt, my electric bills, phone bill, car payment (old ass car at that), car insurance, food, and a few other payments – what do I have left at the end of every month? About $50 bucks….
$50 bucks? Yeah! At best!!
That’s the Average American. We live under a Gov’t we don’t like. Work for companies we donât make enough money to grow in life. Get taxed for everything including the income itself and then after everything might have enough to buy two or three music cd’s or movie dvd’s.
I’m not talking about the 9% of American’s that make lots of money and have never understood what struggle means – screw them.
The rest of us common-folk they rest their feet on…. we’re going to be the ones spending most of that extra money on broadband internet and downloading various things to find out namely if they are worth saving up money for a period of time before we ‘invest’ in them.
There are millions of people in my monetary situation – p2p isn’t going anywhere unless you make us all rich…. how’s that for a role reversal…. PAY ME and I’ll never use a p2p app again… or mail me a dvd a week to ‘review’ on your site…. or your music cd’s…..
Now granted I left the world of p2p some time ago, but the mentality is part of me and always will be…. p2p’ers aren’t hurting the economy – they’re it’s backbone and footrest.
From all of us, I heartily said, BITE US.
Since we’ve paid your salaries for years, you ungrateful bastards.
…Just my 10 cents. lol
_-Jile-_
January 19th, 2005 at 12:58 am
July 13th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
YOUR ALL LOSERS. GROW UP. THATS JUST LIFE